Michael Avenatti, the lawyer who rose to fame for his representation of porn star Stormy Daniels in her suit against former President Trump, was sentenced Monday to 14 years in federal prison “for defrauding his clients and for obstructing IRS efforts to collect payroll taxes from his coffee business,” according to the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Central District of California.
The sentencing comes after the embattled lawyer pleaded guilty to four counts of wire fraud earlier this year for embezzling millions of dollars from four of his clients. Prosecutors said Avenatti negotiated and collected settlement payments on his clients’ behalf only to funnel the money into accounts he controlled.
He also pleaded guilty to one count of endeavoring to obstruct the administration of the Internal Revenue Code after he attempted to obstruct IRS efforts to collect $5 million in unpaid payroll taxes for Tully’s Coffee.
“I am deeply remorseful and contrite,” Avenatti said ahead of the sentencing in apologizing to the victims. “There is no doubt that all of them deserve much better, and I hope that someday they will accept my apologies and find it in their heart to forgive me.”
U.S. District Judge James V. Selna ordered Avenatti’s prison term to “run consecutive to sentences totaling five years previously imposed in two federal cases in the Southern District of New York,” the attorney’s office wrote.
He was also ordered to pay $7 million in restitution.
Prosecutors had requested a 17.5 year prison sentence to be served consecutively with his current sentence. Avenatti, meanwhile, requested a sentence of no more than six years that would run concurrently to his current sentence.
Avenatti is currently serving time in connection with two prior convictions for stealing nearly $300,000 in book proceeds from Daniels and for attempting to extort Nike out of more than $20 million.
He was found guilty in February 2020 of attempted extortion, honest-services fraud and the related use of interstate communications after he tried to “extract more than $20 million in payments” from Nike by threatening the company with bad publicity lest it complied with his demands.
Avenatti attempted to extort the company using a claim by his former client Gary Franklin, an amateur basketball coach who retained the lawyer to pursue reforms by Nike. Franklin had claimed Nike was corruptly paying amateur players and their families.
Avenatti told Nike in 2019 that in order to avoid a press conference in which he would share Franklin’s claims, the company would have to settle with Franklin and sign a consulting agreement with him and attorney Mark Geragos.